


casting shadows on the winter sky

by Lire_Casander



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, Haunted Houses, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Outer Space, Possession, Spooky, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2020-11-23 13:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20892770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lire_Casander/pseuds/Lire_Casander
Summary: curiosity, kitten, doesn't have to mean you're on your own





	1. open up your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the **[ All Hallow's Roswell New Mexico Month](https://rnmhalloween.tumblr.com/post/186964823286/welcome-to-all-hallows-roswell-new-mexico-month)**. Tagging will increase as I post new installments.
> 
> As of now, it's Gen with no pairings, but I'll add Malex if it veers towards that in the end.
> 
> Title and summary taken from Counting Crows' _Murder Of One_.
> 
> Unbeta'ed. I own nothing but my mistakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the [ All Hallow's Roswell New Mexico Month](https://rnmhalloween.tumblr.com/post/186964823286/welcome-to-all-hallows-roswell-new-mexico-month) week 1: **Hauntings**
> 
> Title from Counting Crows' _Murder Of One_.

There’s a house in the outskirts of Roswell, colonial and old and abandoned, where Michael used to spend the worst of winter. He never paid attention to the creaks and cracks of the floors whenever he stepped on them. 

Now, flashlight in hand as he follows the rest of the group through the corridors, he thinks maybe he should have been more attentive. 

They're investigating some incidents, half spoken throughout town, involving paranormal activity they all think can lead to aliens, maybe even a way to bring Max back. 

Michael doesn’t see it coming; one moment they are eight, and the next he hears screaming and huffing until silence greets him. He's with his back on the wall, flashlight in front of him, but the surrounding darkness is too deep. He can’t see anything. 

He calls out each of their names. No one replies, until Alex mutters at his left. "What's going on?" 

"I don't know," Alex whispers. "But we have to move on." 

They pick up a pace, together and alone, shivering, stepping on watery ground. Michael shivers when the liquid texture under his cowboy boots becomes thicker. 

And a laughter, low and sickeningly eerie, reverberates through the halls.


	2. saw you walking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the [ All Hallow's Roswell New Mexico Month](https://rnmhalloween.tumblr.com/post/186964823286/welcome-to-all-hallows-roswell-new-mexico-month) week 1: **Possessions**
> 
> Title from Counting Crows' _Murder Of One_.

Michael flashes the light in front of him onto a seemingly endless corridor. There are no doors on the walls, just bricks on the verge of falling down. Michael takes a step forward, Alex behind him. 

"What d'you think is going on?" Alex asks, his own light trembling a path before them.

"I don't know, and I’m kinda afraid to find out," Michael confesses. For all his outward stance of angry cowboy, he really doesn’t like paranormal events. 

"Michael?" comes Isobel's voice from somewhere by the end of the corridor, where the path takes a turn to the left.

After sharing a glance under the dim light, both set off running toward the voice. The corridor ends up abruptly in a wide hall where Isobel is standing. She has her arms around her waist, tightening her sweater against her skin. 

He should have known something was off, but he doesn’t think straight. He launches himself to her and hugs her. "Iz, where did you all go?" 

"There’s a way out," she says. There is a gleam of panic in her grey eyes. "I came back for you." She motions for them to follow her through a door by the end of the room. 

Alex shoots him a glance, but Michael ignores him and follows Isobel. The door leads to another corridor that ends in a pitch-black room. "Isobel?" Michael questions. His sister doesn’t reply, but the room lights up suddenly, and they both can see Isobel standing next to a long row of open coffins. "Iz?" 

"She’s not here," comes a distorted sound out of her mouth, and Isobel drops unconscious on top of one coffin. Michael feels Alex’s hand grounding some warmth into his skin. He should have known better, he chides himself. 

Isobel's eyes have never been grey.


	3. open up your wings to speak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the [ All Hallow's Roswell New Mexico Month](https://rnmhalloween.tumblr.com/post/186964823286/welcome-to-all-hallows-roswell-new-mexico-month) week 2: **Creatures**
> 
> Title from Counting Crows' _Murder Of One_.

Behind Michael, Alex lets out a quiet yelp. They are apparently alone in the room, with Isobel’s unconscious body and a row of open coffins, but neither seems to want to move and check on them or _Isobel_.

“What was that?” Alex asks, placing one hand on Michael’s should and making him wince.

“I don’t know,” Michael whispers back. They remain still until a voice takes them out of their stupor.

“Welcome to my humble abode. I’ve been waiting for you,” comes the sound from the other side of the room. Michael and Alex hold their breaths as a figure steps out of the shadows. It looks like Max, but the voice isn’t quite right.

“You’re not Max,” Michael accuses.

“I can be whoever you want me to be,” the figure says, morphing quickly into Liz’s height, Kyle’s stance, until it settles for Alex’s form.

Michael holds his flashlight down, trying to understand what’s happening.

“It’s a shapeshifter,” the _real_ Alex supplies, hand still on his shoulder, grounding him. 

The figure simply laughs, noise echoing endlessly. “If that’s what you want to call me.”

“And what should we call you?” Michael dares to say, stepping boldly forward.

With a flick of its wrist, the figure makes Alex drop to his knees, pained but stubborn in his decision not to cry out when his knees hit the floor. “I’m whoever you want me to be,” the figure repeats. 

Michael growls, but he can’t move. The figure has him pinned to the ground. “What do you want from us?”

The figure finally morphs into an unbelievable shape of a seven-feet tall humanoid being with flaming eyes and wings – wings that scare Michael more than they should, all black and menacing. Alex starts wailing behind him as the figure makes him twist. “_Everything_.”


	4. a secret never to be told

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the [ All Hallow's Roswell New Mexico Month](https://rnmhalloween.tumblr.com/post/186964823286/welcome-to-all-hallows-roswell-new-mexico-month) week 3: **Outer Space**
> 
> Title from Counting Crows' _Murder Of One_.

Michael tries not to get distracted by Alex's wailing behind him, but it's difficult to keep focused on the not-human being threatening them when Michael can feel Alex twisting in pain. 

“Where's my family?" he asks through gritted teeth.

"I am," the figure replies, eyes aflame.

"No," Michael keeps going, attempting for a distraction. Michael knows they can't get out of here without Alex’s abilities. “Where’s my _family_?” he growls this time.

The figure chuckles. “I’ve told you.” It moves slowly, deliberately approaching him while making Alex cry out. “You and I, Michael, we’re the same. We came to this planet at the same time, we can’t live without each other.”

Michael doesn’t dare to look at his back, where Alex is writhing, calling out _don’t, Guerin, don’t listen to this, don’t_. The figure keeps walking toward him, and Michael remembers Noah’s words, a flash of red and pain.

There was a stowaway in the ship. Before the crash landing.

“You provoked the accident,” he accuses, out of breath.

The figure stills, and a slow, painful grimace splits its face in two as though it’s smiling. “Oh, no, Michael,” it says, finally reaching him. “It wasn’t me. It was _you_.”


	5. flames of your wasted life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the [ All Hallow's Roswell New Mexico Month](https://rnmhalloween.tumblr.com/post/186964823286/welcome-to-all-hallows-roswell-new-mexico-month) week 4: **Magic, Witches, Warlocks**
> 
> Title from Counting Crows' _Murder Of One_.

The heat is almost unbearable, when the figure reaches to Michael and holds him hostage against his will, a fire spreading from inside out while Alex’s wails turn to soft murmurs as the figure keeps him isolated in his own mind. Michael wishes he could tune the voice out but it’s coming from deep within himself now. “_You_ took over the ship and forced them to land it on Earth, _you_ made them bend on-”

“I was a kid!” Michael bellows. He can’t stand the pain any longer. Lacking Alex’s grounding force, since he’s writhing in pain and unable to help, Michael’s really close to giving in to the strife. 

“Fight back!” Maria’s voice comes from a corner of his mind he didn’t know was calling out. He can see her with his inner eye, aura fiery red whenever he catches a glimpse of her silhouette. “I can hold it back for a while, but you need to fight!”

Maria’s projecting a force field of sorts so strong that it almost knocks him out, keeping the figure’s powers in check. Michael can feel the heat diminishing, a loud whisper in the back of his mind. “Maria?”

“I come from a long line of witches and witchcraft, Michael,” she offers. “But I’m not that strong. Use your telekinesis. End this _now_!”

With Maria’s help and the encouragement he can sense coming from Alex among his pained wails that have become louder the more silenced the figure gets, Michael focuses, centering his powers, and he pushes.

And pushes.

And pushes.

The figure screeches when it’s hit by Michael’s strength, almost forgotten in the grief and the despair, but he keeps pushing until all that’s left is a shadow on the floor, a smoking column of dust ascending, and silence casts over them.


	6. sleeping underneath your skin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the [ All Hallow's Roswell New Mexico Month](https://rnmhalloween.tumblr.com/post/186964823286/welcome-to-all-hallows-roswell-new-mexico-month) week 5: **Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark**. I'm not sure if it fits the prompt, though.
> 
> Title from Counting Crows' _Murder Of One_.

Alex falls to the ground with a loud _thump_. Maria rushes to Isobel and props her up. The rest rise up from the coffins sprawled through the hall, coughing and swearing with rough voices. Michael can’t shake the lingering feeling of _someone_ prodding at the back of his mind, but he has to move. Alex needs him – he’s whimpering his name.

“It was the stowaway,” he mutters as he rushes to Alex, simply and curt, too busy taking care of Alex.

“Let’s go back home,” Maria suggests. Everyone just nods, following her out of the building through a door neither had seen before.

Although they all ride back together, Michael takes Alex to the cabin on his own. They don’t speak once they get there, tangled together in a heap of limbs and bones on the bed.

Michael doesn’t remember the dreams, only the sounds.

_Welcome home, Rath_, the voice’s saying when he wakes up. He saunters to the bathroom trying not to wake Alex up, in an attempt to clear his head from the nightmares. He splashes some water on his face, staring at his reflection on the mirror.

Grey eyes laced with fire stare right back at him.


End file.
